1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed herein relates to sports training glasses. More particularly, it relates to sports training eyeglasses having lenses with opaque peripheral regions, laterally adjustable apertures in the opaque peripheral lenses, temple arms made from a shape memory material, and an adjustable nosepiece.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many participatory sports necessitate well-developed eye-hand coordination for a player to effectively engage in that sport. Eye-hand coordination is particularly important in sports such as baseball, golf, hockey, or tennis which require the player to swing an equipment piece, such as a bat, racket, or club, and contact a ball or other playing piece. These actions require the player to see or observe the playing piece quickly, often estimating its distance, direction and velocity of travel, and activate various muscles of the body and arm to bring the apparatus into contact with the playing piece.
All these actions would be accomplished in a near instantaneous time frame and can be achieved only with well conditioned, automatic eye-hand coordination. This coordination requires a complex series of neuromuscular actions which can be performed effectively only after unconscious “muscle memory” has been developed. This “muscle memory” can be developed at the unconscious level only after many hours of concentration and practice.
To improve ones skill and ability in sports such as baseball, golf, hockey, or tennis, a player often must learn new sets of motor skills, such as more effective ways of holding and swinging a bat, club, or racket. Learning these new motor skills usually proceeds through three stages; the cognitive, the associative, and the autonomous stages.
The cognitive stage is the first stage where the player first attempts to learn the new skills and must give near total attention and concentration to his or her body movement and to the playing piece which he is trying to strike, such as the ball. Through repetition and continued practice the motor skills gradually become more automatic and less conscious until the motor skills reach the autonomous level, where the neuromuscular system acts subconsciously and requires little conscious attention.
The time period from the cognitive to the autonomous learning stages can vary from individual to individual. However, regardless of the individual, the learning period to the autonomous level can be hastened through more acute attention and concentration on the object, such as the ball, during the cognitive stage. Conversely, a player who is easily distracted and has trouble concentrating, or “keeping his eye on the ball,” will spend a longer time period in the cognitive and associative stages before the new motor skills become automatic and autonomous.
Various optical aids for assisting a player to “keep ones eye on the ball” are known in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 1,135,921, awarded to Ramsay on Apr. 13, 1915, discloses an optical instrument for use in playing the game of golf or like ballgames. The instrument consists of pair circular, opaque eye-shades connected by an adjustable frame. Each eye-shade has a small aperture located slightly off-center. The apparatus is worn like a typical pair of glasses and the small aperture in the opaque lenses assist the wearer in focusing on a ball and eliminates other distractions. However, the Ramsay invention is difficult and cumbersome to use when aligning the apertures with the distance between the pupils of the wearer.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,398, awarded to Moore on Oct. 7, 1997, provides for eyeglasses having opaque lenses with a small transparent aperture which again assists the wearer to focus on a desired point and eliminate other distractions. Similar to Ramsay, the Moore invention requires the entire opaque lens to be adjusted to account for varying distances between the pupils of the wearer.
A pair of eyeglasses is desirable which provide for a small moveable aperture within an overall opaque lens but in which the aperture's position may be adjusted without having to adjust the entire lens.